Retro Game Friday: Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood

Hey all I’m back to daily posts, and it’s starting back up with Retro Game Friday. It’s all about Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood!

Plot Synopsis: Desmond’s story continues where it left off, in 2012. After escaping the Templars’ attack at the end of Assassin’s Creed II, Desmond Miles, Lucy Stillman, Rebecca Crane, and Shaun Hastings flee to Monteriggioni, establishing a new hideout in the ruins of the Villa Auditore. After restoring the electricity in the old tunnels under the villa, the player once again takes control of Ezio Auditore through Desmond’s genetic memory, using the Animus 2.0 (which is the game’s memory interface). Their mission is to find the Apple of Eden, an important and mysterious artifact that could prevent the impending disaster that is coming in that same year, believed to be perpetrated by the Templars…

Plot: The plot of Brotherhood was pretty amazing, and while it’s the first game which featured the same person as the main character in the past, it wasn’t bad at all. Frankly I really enjoyed the plot of Brotherhood, although it’s not quite as good as ACII, for reasons I won’t name due to spoilers.

Gameplay: This plays quite a bit like ACII, although it included use of horses inside Rome and added the Brotherhood function, which was more than a bit overpowered if you took the time to level the members up as soon as possible. Doing so would allow you to pretty much empty entire missions of guards by whistling for an assassin to take each of them out, which they would do flawlessly after getting to the max rank.

Characters: While many characters re-appear from prior games, I still think that Da Vinci was the best side character in the entire game.

Art: The art has aged, however good news for those who haven’t played Brotherhood is that it along with ACII and Revelations were remastered for HD quite recently for the latest generation of consoles.

Overall: A solid entry in the series, although the Brotherhood functions were more than a bit overpowered.

Video Game Tuesday: Assassin’s Creed 3

This week I’m covering the end of the Desmond Saga in the Assassin’s Creed series.

Plot Synopsis:  The main character is Desmond Miles, a 21st-century Assassin, working to uncover the secrets of a mysterious Precursor Vault that purportedly will protect the Earth from an upcoming solar flare on December 21, 2012. To uncover the secrets, Desmond uses the Animus to live out memories of two of his ancestors which the player controls during these sequences, both set at the time of the American Revolutionary War.

Plot: I enjoyed the modern missions immensely in this game although I wish that Desmond had a second Hidden Blade personally, as it would’ve been nice to have it in combat. The plot in the past however was okay, but not spectacular. I can’t say anymore without any spoilers happening, but it wasn’t that great.

Characters: I didn’t like how set on his goals Connor was, and he wasn’t nearly as funny as Ezio was in previous games. The only amusing character I met was Ben Franklin, who was a riot to listen to. There wasn’t enough funny moments to break up the seriousness of the rest of the game and it made Connor seem like a jerk most of the time.

Gameplay: One thing that was really different from previous games was the fact that cities were a heck of a lot more dangerous on the rooftops than they were in previous games I’d played. I found myself on the streets way too often, when in past games I’d have rarely touched the ground unless I was doing it after jumping off a building to stab a couple guards to death. Also the streets were way too large, with no easy way of crossing the street from rooftop to rooftop. A nice addition was the ability to treerun, free run through the treetops, and it made it so much fun to play out in the wilderness where a wolf could easily kick your butt and kill you in a couple seconds.

Combat : Is much different from previous games in that it was harder to counter-stab people to death, and I found myself not using the Hidden Blades exclusively like I did when I played as Ezio. I enjoyed using the Tomahawk much more than I thought I would. Also changed was the way recruited assassin’s functioned. Instead of getting like 20 in Brotherhood, you only had 8 total, but they were much more powerful than before. I found myself able to clear entire streets full of guards using just my recruits and not having to fight myself at all. I guess that makes up for the fact that I had to walk on the streets most of the time.

Music: The music in this was amazing, from the opening sequence to the final sequence as Desmond.

Art: One thing I had against the art style in this was that all the trees looked way to similar, which was in part to being able to treerun for the first time in the series. Overall: If you can get over the fact that it’s characters were unlikable it’s a pretty good game gameplay-wise. For those who like: The series, solid gameplay, not so solid plot. Not for those who don’t like: Any of the above.